
Class _£S_2^J2^ 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT <2 PV ^ 




Of this edition of " Praxiteles " three hundred num- 
bered copies were printed in March and April, 1903. 

This copy is N° 3oo 



THE PLATS OF 



MMFONIUS 



EX ANTI^ITATIS ANGIPORTIBUS 



^rajcitflcs 



QTbe iHarion press 

Jamatta ©uetnoborouffl) J3elu=pnrt 

1903 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

JUN 5 1903 

^ Copyright Entry 
SLASS *' XXc. No. 
COPY 



■2 7 



PS r^5zo 
..PbPz 



Copyright, 1903, by Thomas Dunkin Paret. 



SDramatifif tDcr^oner. 

Praxiteles, a Sculptor. 
Callias, a Prince. 
Diogenes, the Cynic. 

.. ' > Athenians. 

Memmius, I 

w ' \ in retinue of Callias. 

Lucius, j •' 

Mm k%y father of Eugia, a mason. 

EuGiA, servant of Praxiteles. 

Althea, mother of Eugia. 

Velina, wife of Praxiteles. 

NYCTELiA,/n>W of Eugia. 

Marcia, a great Lady. 

Flora, attendant on Marcia. 

Laco, a male attendant. 



ACT 1. 

S<ccnr I. ^tnHio of Praritelee. 
S>crnt 2. 3 ©narrp on Ptntelttoet. 

ACT 2. 

S<crnr I. S>tnlito o£ prarttrlrc. 

Sictiu 2. ^anqact room m |)ou0c of }pra);tteU0. 

ACT 3. 

^ttnt I. tK\)t Jonntatn of Salmatta. 
Srcitr 2. anteroom to S'tnliio. 
Stent 3. bomt of Sltbta. 

ACT 4. 
Stent I. ante room of prarittlea. 
Stene 2. anteroom of prartttltc. (Two days later.) 

ACT 5. 

Stene I. Stnlio of prarittlea. 
Sttne 2. (El)t fountain of Salmatta. 
S>tene 3. Stulio of pra);itelrfi. 



Cl^c piavfi of iHattooniu0 



PRAXITELES 

311ct 1. — hectic 1. 

Cbr S>tnIito of praiciteUs. 
Busts, statues, clay models, drawings, etc. In the background a girl mixing clay. 

Prax. [Seated in a despondent attitude.^ I cannot work. And yet 1 rose 
this morn with every pulse athroh. While these dull laggards of the 
city here lay wanton in their beds, or dead in sleep, 1 hied me with 
quick step towards the shore. Then morn rose from the sea like one 
great pearl, gray orbed and lustreless; and then, as if it had a heart, 
life's red suffused it all. Then to an opal did it turn, and blazing lay in 
shimmering iridescence. Such green, such red — the vine-leaf and the 
wine. Then rose the sun, and morn lay shining there a glistening dia- 
mond in sea's sapphire cup. One moment's breath, the long, white sea- 
sands o'er, brought me the smell of salt, of ooze, of brine — a smell of 
distance, borne from isles afar. I stripped and stood there naked, all 
alone, a living whiteness on the dead sea-sand. Then I forgot myself 
and sat me down — forgot myself, the shore, the world, the sea — full 
only of a vagrant, antique dream — an unshaped beauty I had never 
caught. I strove to mould it in the fickle sand — that dead, dull sand, 
which, being dry, cohered not — being wet, did flow. And then I 
spurned the sand and sprung to foot, and revelled in my naked, living 
self, rejoiced to think I was a man, not clay. Then did I wade out in 
the clear, blue deep, and sank my body underneath its waves till the sea, 
like a sapphire rim, did meet my lips. I breathed the ooze, the in- 
toxicating brine. I stretched my arms out to the distant isles. I 
strained my eyes to heaven, to the horizon's verge, seeking some 
form which should condense to shape and show me nature's long lost, 
perfect type. 

A land breeze came, the smell of thyme and bees, and drew me 
back to doubt, to work, to home. 



JO PRAXITELES. [Act J, Sc. (. 

Nurse enters by side door, carrying with difficulty a large child, much 
wrapped. Nurse stands doubtingly in background. 

Nurse. Oh, master ! 

Prax. Well, what's amiss ? 

Nurse. The child — 

Prax. \_Angrily.'] The child ? Well, where's its mother ? Am I to be 
nurse, father, mother, and all ? Did I not make it once, or help to make 
it ? Am I to mend or remake it every day ? Nay ! I have work to do 
— a character to imagine, a form to mould, a shape to carve, an ideal to 
reach, a thing to create, a statue which shall live. Go get thee to the 
nursery ! Soothe it, amuse it, do something, and if it gets not better 
call me again — after awhile. 

As Praxiteles turns away from nurse, Eugia approaches and bends sympa- 
thetically over the child. The two women stand silent for a few moments 
with heads close together. 

Prax. \_Rising in anger.'] Get thee gone to the nursery, I say ; and thou, 
Eugia, what business hast thou there ? Go, mix thy clay. That lump 
was mixed long since — and badly mixed at that. 

\_Exit nurse. Eugia returns to her work. 

Enter the Prince Callias, young, handsome, in gay attire, with brilliant 

retinue. 

Cal. How now, great sculptor, I see thy hands are clean. 

Prax. Aye ! yet not so my heart ; for the sense of work undone, o'erdone, 
ill done, lies thick upon it. 

Cal. But great works done pledge greater works to be. Hast thou lost 
faith? Then let me be thy hope. All Athens hails thee as a man 
grown great, and great men come from far to crown thy greater great- 
ness. The strength of Athens' birth — the beauty of her dawn — all 
that shone once and sank again, lost in the past's deep gloom and dim 
forgetfulness, thou hast evoked and made to live. Those forms of old 
take shape beneath the cunning of thine hand and live once more in 
ivory and bronze. 

Prax. In lifeless bronze; in marble cold as ice; in ivory that's dead — a 
whitened bone was never clothed with flesh. 

Cal. Aye ! but flesh rots, while marble still endures. When thou art dead, 
thou artist great and gray, I, thy young Prince, shall rule, a King, in 
Athens, and all these forms of beauty and of power shall grace our 
Parthenon. 

Prax. And still be dead, as I and my stone tomb, and the cold pedestals 
whereon they stand. 



Act J, So J.] PRAXITELES. Jl 

Cal. Yet being dead shall speak. Shall beckon wanderers from all lands 
afar to see our country's fame. 

I see them come! Barbarians from the North with shaggy skins, 
rough as the beasts from out their savage lands. They shall confront 
thy panoplied array and slink back beaten from these moveless shields 

— this valor carved in stone. They shall grow faint at all this naked 
loveliness, and, wending home, shall snatch their women from the pack 
and stress of life's dull, beast-like cares — shall touch them softly, lap 
them tenderly, and watch their work-worn forms grow more divine. 

I see them come! Imbruted beings from the black, far South — with 
shapeless lips, with flattened face, with yard-long bosoms heaved their 
shoulders o'er to suckle infants hanging on their backs. They shall 
see all these perfect forms divine, — thy sinewy warriors, thy smooth, 
rounded maids, — and, falling back appalled at their own hideousness, 
shall worship us and be our slaves forever. 

I see them come! Yellow and wizened, from the far, far East — a 
mummied, living race. They shall abhor their time-worn, shrunken 
selves, their histories vague, their heroes vaguer still, their non-exist- 
ent gods, their infertile dust of a worn-out, used-up past. They shall 
see manliness erect and beauty prone, ready to breed new beauty and 
new life and keep an old world young. They shall abhor their very 
flesh and blood ; shall open wide their lands to every throng from all 
the illimitable vast areas of earth's vast surfaces; shall open up their 
wombs to foreign seed, and graft the newest branch on the old world's 
oldest stock. 

I see them come ! Youthtul and boisterous from the great, far West 

— eager to imitate and quick to learn — thirsty for knowledge, hungry 
for applause, greedy to see all, have all, be all. They shall drink us in, 
digest us, live us out, and build on our prone walls a later Greece. 

Prax. On our prone walls but statues few shall stand. Greece shall be 
buried and Troy be a name. Dirt-heaps shall mark the spots where 
cities stood, and marble, bronze, and ivory shall lie with potherds and 
with clay. And you and I — 

Cal. We shall be clay, I know, and clay shall lie till some new power doth 
seize and wrestle with us, — with stress and strain shall flow around and 
drink us in, — with throb and pulse shall beat and breathe us out, and 
blend with every atom of our long-dead dust some spark of new, strange 
fire. 

Prax. So strange we shall not know it. So new it will not warm our older 
selves, nor wake to life what death froze long ago. I shall not see my 
works. I shall not know what men may praise them, nor what maidens 
faint in longing to be like. Why shall I work for such dim, distant 
time, in the far-off night of a yet unreckoned age ? 

Cal. Then work for these, my youthful followers here. Carve them some 



12 PRAXITELES, [Act J, Sc. J. 

Satyr, form half man, half beast. Thus may they learn how hath man 
risen from the brute he was, and, being man, how like a beast oft grows. 
Shape Aphrodite so her perfect limbs tempt women all to greater shape- 
liness. Form Eros so his pranks niixt maids and men may unmake 
maids and fill the world with men. 
Prax. Nay ! I will work for none of these. Not for example's sake, nor 
distant fame, nor thy sweet will, my Prince ! There is a greater than 
them all — myself; a greater than myself — my work. 

\_Exeunt Prince and retinue. 

Prax. Bring me the clay, Eugia. Nay ! Why so pale .'' Hast thou been 
mixing, tired, through this long talk ? 

J^ug. Nay, master. I'm not tired. 

Prax. White and in tears.'' Oh! now I see. I spoke thee harshly. 'Twas 
an unkind thing. But I have struck so oft on breasts of stone, I touch 
poor human hearts too hastily. If I do scratch yon bosom's polished 
curve a touch will set it right. Can I erase from yours the wound that 
I have made? Forgive me, Eugia. Nay, pity me. For I've lost faith 
in self and art and work — have lost my power to work. Urgence and 
praise, the public's loud applause, guerdon and promise and my King's 
command — they weigh me down like lead. Thy hand alone, thy clay- 
stained hand, which tells of faithful care, alone can help me on. 

Oh! I have waved my hand in air, when young, and felt that with 

one sweep was beauty born. Now I dissect that beauty, merciless, and 

scorn the haste of youth. Had I thy care — thy patient, plodding care, 

thy strict devotion to that humble clay — I should make marble speak. 

Give me the clay, Eugia. Let's begin. 

Enter Nurse with child. Praxiteles turns angrily. 

Prax. The child again ! 

Nurse. I cannot still him, master. He doth toss and moan and twist his 
shrunken limbs. 

Prax. Then let him play. Thou coddlest him o'ermuch. He cannot use 
his arms, nor walk, nor grow, banded and swaddled like a babe just born. 

Nurse. \Uncovering the child.'] Play, and with limbs like that? 

Prax. Well, who's to fault? I am no weakling, shriveled up and drawn. 
Fairer than fair his lazy mother is. Spotless and perfect, a luxuriant 
beast, she wiles her hours away. She hath so bathed in Styx no stone 
can bruise, no lance can scratch, no sting can pierce her. She sheds the 
woes of life from her sleek skin and keeps a bosom so soft no sword 
can cut it. And all her indolence breeds fire in me — fever to do, to 
work, to strive. And all her painlessness breeds pain in him. Since he 
was born how changed she grew. How from an unshaped girl she bios-. 



ActnSct.l PRAXITELES. 13 

somed out and turned a form divine. Such grace ot action, dignity of 
step, such peach-like color, such red, changeful blood ! And as she 
suckled him she grew in health while he did suck in poison. See him 
there, the wizened, waxen, shrunken thing — with limbs all twisted and 
with joints awry, a parodv on man. Go take him thence! How did I 
ever breed a thing so vile from all that grace and fairness.'' 

[^Exeunt Nurse and child, and, after them, Praxiteles. 
Eugia sinks wearily on a sculptured capital. 



Enter Althea, bearing a basket and an amphora of wine. 

Eug. \_Rushing eagerly forward."] O mother! mother! I'm so sick for 
home ! Come, sit thee down, and tell me all thy news. 

Alt. Nay ! Sit thou first. \_Places her in the sculptor s chair and leans ten- 
derly over her.] Thou lookest pale, and thin, and worn. 

Eug. Not of me, mother, but of thy news ! Is my garden bright ? Do the 
bees hum? Is father well? Doth the peacock stretch his tail over the 
wall? Doth the dog miss me and the cat lie ever on the sill? Do the 
girls and bovs gambol by night around the well? O mother! I have 
seen so much of stone and clav I could kiss every green thing that 
groweth from the crack of a wall. And the figs, mother, are they turn- 
ing yet? O mother! It is clay and stone all day, and when the night 
is come only stone arches to stroll under and stone paths to tread on. 

Alt. Ah, dainty one! i knew 'twere safe to try thee. Thou lovest thy 
home too much to wander far or long. 'Tis a scant fare and a narrow 
cot we folk of the hills do use, but scant fare and narrow cot with a wide 
love are better than grand cities and cold hearts. But see, I have 
brought thee flowers from thy garden. 

Eug. How bright, how sweet, how like my own dear home! But, mother, 
I find not cold hearts here. 

Alt. Yet thou art pale and thin. I fear them all. They do not treat thee 
well. They're rough, unkind. They make thee work too long, too 
hard. 

Eug. It was too hard, too long, when in the first few days I worked for 
gain alone. Not now, for work and love. O mother! I think them all 
most kind, most pitiful. There is an infant — nay, a boy, rather — who 
should be rollicking and strong, yet moans and sighs and shrinks and 
does not grow. And a nurse most patient who tendeth him all day. 
Never doth she scold nor weary, yet getteth never a good word. For 
my master is so proud of his marble and so shamed ot his boy he hath 
ever a harsh word for him and her. And then there is his mother. So 
sweet, so fair, so like a full-blown rose. She smileth in disdain at my 
master's taunts. She turneth peevishly from the nurse's talk and the 



14 PRAXITELES. [Act i, Sc. U 

child's crying ; but oh, mother ! I have heard her sob when alone as 
though her heart would break. 

y^U. Come away, child, come away. This is no place for thee. 

Eug. Nay ! My master needs me, and I must knead his clay. Oh, he 
hath done such wonderful things, and hath great things to do. We 
must be patient, mother, he and I, for if he lack patience he will accom- 
plish nothing; and I sit, oh, so still! and mix and bruise, but strain 
with all my soul to breathe my life, my form, my dream, my thought, 
into that soulless clay. 

j4Il Come home, my child, come home ! Thy father broodeth at eve now 
thou art gone. Thy fairest rose is dead. Thy lover wantoneth with 
other maids, and here thy thoughts grow wild. 

Eug. I cannot leave him, mother, cannot come. There is great work to 
do, and he so sad. Only to day our young Prince hath been here — 
argued, commanded, bargained, pled in vain. My master feels out- 
worn, but I am young, and, knowing little, yet will find some way to fire 
his heart anew. 

yf //. The young Prince here and all his reckless crew ? Why ! 'tis no place 
for thee. Thou needst thy home. 

Eug. Were I so weak to need it I should flee home and myself — should 
flee in shame, for knowing myself unfit to make a home myself. Nay ! 
Here I stay till I do rise in bronze or sink in clay. 

Curtain. 



5llct 1. — ^ccnc 2. 

a ©narrj) on prntfltcuB. 

Praxiteles, Callias, Diogenes, officials and citizens of Athens, workmen, teamsters, and country 

folk. Praxiteles, Callias, and Diogenes stand together ; others are 

scattered through the quarry. 

Master .'-^arrymarj. \_lVith hammer and square, approaching Prax., eU.I 
May it please you, great Prince, the blocks lie ready for the master's 
choosing. 

Praxiteles and others follow ^arryman to place where the marble blocks are 
ranged. The crowd, as it wanders through the quarry, gathers round the 
blocks, separating and congregating from time to time. 

Cal. Ye men of Athens, greatness hath two sides. 'Tis a great thing to 
hold an office high and issue high commands ; yet words were vain were 
there none fit to serve and prompt to obey. Behold us here, your 
Prince and lord — your King that yet may be; and here a simple man 
— an artisan in stone. And yet, perchance, this artisan in stone is 
greater than his Prince — transcends the State. Ages may come when 
all that's known of me may be some epic where 'tis briefly said, " In 
Callias' reign the greatest sculptor lived." I have commissioned this 
sculptor, and to this the State commissions me. 

Diog. When did the State commission thee to spend its hard-earned pence 
on worthless stone? Are there not men in Greece who have no tubs to 
live in? 

Cal. Not even tubs ! Yet pity have I none for homeless wanderers who 
ask the State to give what they should earn. Hath the State need or 
use for beasts like that? Let them find dens, and, ravening, kill and 
prey, till, when the State sets bounties on their heads, they're killed and 
preyed upon. But for the widow and her helpless young, let the State 
shield them in her kindly arms and make its hearth their home. Thy 
tub, O cynic, is no humble home! 'Tis but the palace of thy too 
great pride, set wide for Greece to stare at. 

There are none fit for tubs who do not know and feel the great at- 
tainments of a bounteous world — its hoarded luxuries, its hived sweets, 
its things to use and have. High on those walls, in ages yet to be, 
this marble of Praxiteles shall shine, a gleaming whiteness, towering o'er 



16 PRAXITELES. [Actt,Sc2. 

our dust. There shall be stored, with usury of years, the hard-earned 
pence of Greece. Thence from that wealth shall flow a greater wealth 
— the wealth of cultured men, of women fair, of art's most high do- 
main ; the flood of all things which do make men meet for all that's 
great and good. And here, beneath, the ignoble dust shall lie of those 
who made their poverty their tomb. 

Ye men of Athens, Greece hath warrant to coin its wealth in men. 
Yet must the coiner have his die and mould — his pattern's sample and 
art's deep impress. Those who do fashion out what men have been do 
shape what men shall be. 

Welcome this sculptor ! Seal the State's command ! Raise from this 
stone new emulant to fame ! 

The throng shouts while Diogenes lays a laurel wreath upon a marble block. 

Prax. Whence comes this block .? 'Tis a goodly shape and a fair white- 
ness. 

^uarryman. 'Tis from the old vein, and fair and even. And 'tis right soft. 

Prax. Then 'twill work easily. 

T)iog. Aye ! and will be finished ere thou hast time to plan what it should 
be, and, being done, will suck through every pore the grime, the smoke, 
the dust, the sweat of Athens. 'Twill turn like gold and taunt the poor 
with the semblance of wealth that is ofi^ered them — with the coldness 
and the hardness they have. 

Prax. And this next one? 

'^arryman. 'Tis from the lower level, and hard and fine, but lacketh some 
in whiteness. 

Prax. Then will it take a high finish, yet have a softer lustre. 

Diog. Aye ! and a hard face and a rigid bosom like a young maid bred in 
riches. 'Twill smirk on Athens as if it said, " Come not too nigh ! Thy 
place is lower." 

Prax. And this one here ? 

^arryman. 'Tis from an opening new and all untried. A most rare tex- 
ture, white, and fine, and hard. Never a seam nor a flaw — only this 
touch of yellow in one corner here. 

Prax. New and untried, like my dream's latest hope. Perchance there 
sleeps therein some creature yet unknown. When my hands play upon 
the yielding stone it seemeth then some frozen creature warmed be- 
neath my touch and wakened into life. Where did she come from? 
Whence evoked? From that cold stone or my warm heart? 

Diog. Hast thou forgot thy ways, thy means, thy helps ? Do we not know 
the drudging care that furnishes thy clay ? Do we not know the ap- 
prentice hands which roughen it to form ? Do we not know thy work- 
men's tools which hack and crack and bring thy stone to shape ? Do 



Act >,Sc2.1 PRAXITELES. 17 

we not know the living flesh which stands and bares its nudeness to thy 
gluttonous gaze and warms and tempts thee on ? 

Frax. Yet what are these hut the bare facts which art must rest on? Wo- 
men all are nude, yet is their nudeness flesh until the master-hand shall 
make that nude divine. 

Into the mill the clay, the ooze, the slime. Into the lump an un- 
shaped, plastic mass. Into the fingers cunning and warm blood. Blood 
which has flowed through channels of live flesh, and lay in fleshly urns 
and ripened there, and been poured out to other urns of flesh, carrying 
from each to each, since life's first dawn, a deepening flavor of earth's 
living whole. Blood which with odors strange doth thrill each chord 
of sense. Blood which with ethers rare doth fire the brain. Blood 
which doth pulse that brain beyond our frame, making it touch the un- 
heard, the unseen, the unfelt, to throb in unison with the great unknown. 

Diog. Why go so far — why strain so hard — to make an unknown thing 
within thyself touch unknown things without? Do not our bodies 
touch the cold, hard ground? Do not stones bruise our feet, beams 
wound our head ? Doth not pain rack the sick and hunger's pang 
cramp the starved stomachs of our craving poor? Doth not the State — 
with edict, statute, law — compress the men of Greece and squeeze each 
in to its most rigid mould, to stiffen there — this shaped to purpose vile, 
and that for show — this for dishonor made, and that for pride? 

Cal. Do not the stalls and stables of the King shelter proud steeds for 
kinglv chariots fit, and duller brutes for wain and car and plow — even 
the slow oxen which shall drag yon stone, lumbering and creaking, 
down this rocky chasm, till it shall glide, undrawn, on highways smooth? 
And shall we stall the blood-cursed, spavined nag — dose him and feed 
him, curry him with care, swathe and foment him, bend above his straw, 
fire him with drugs, and set him ranging free to breed new spavins and 
thus add to his own a chain ot useless lives? Nay! Leave him — drop 
him — let him lie and die. Let the cold cruelty of a pity great hold 
back compassion's still more cruel hand. 

Lead out the King's own charger! Rub him well, till every vein do 
show — each hair do shine. Load him with gems and powder him with 
gold. Let the shrill trumpet blare — the drum beat loud. Let the gold 
spur bedeck his snowy flanks with jewels of life-blood. Then send him 
forth, a prancing, royal thing, bearing to fate's high mission Greece's 
King. 

^arryman. What hast thou chosen, master? 

Prax. I choose this last, and in my choice doth lie a duty heavier than this 
mass of white. My Prince commands — the State commissions him and 
art doth summon me. What if 'twere better for the State to raise a 
hundred blood-warm forms than one stone-cold? What if in choosing 
me he choose amiss and use a hand too weak, a soul too small ? For I 



J8 PRAXITELES. [Act I, Sc. 2. 

must sort and pick and range all forms of life, condemning this as base 
and that as poor — till I do fix on life's most perfect form for art's most 
high ideal. 

And what if I do choose this block amiss — lured by its outer sheen 
and knowing not some deep-set fissure or some age-born flaw ? O men 
of Athens ! if the practiced hand doubts its own cunning and its sinews' 
skill, — if men, grown gray, with fear and trembling move, doubting the 
wisdom of each act and word, though it makes or mars one paltry life 
alone, — how shall the State hold back and shrink in dread lest its de- 
crees do shape for time unknown some nation's faulty form ? 

We can but try. I choose this block as mine, seeing in its unshaped 
proneness things divine. 

Workmen draw up an empty cart and load the stone upon it. Diogenes lays 
his laurel wreath on the chosen stone. Callias and Diogenes take hold of 
cross-bar of the cart's pole, while citizens and quarrymen fasten a rope to 
it and draw the car from the quarry. Praxiteles walks seriously behind the 
car. 



3Cft 2.— -^rcnc 1. 

Sitntto of prarttrlre. 

Eugia is seen arranging scrapers, chisels, mallets, and other tools upon a work-bench. 

Enter Velina. 

Vel. How likest thou thy new employ ? 

Eug. Well, madam, passing well, though 'tis all new and strange. I was a 
simple girl of lowlv birth, and moved in simple ways. I saw the flowers 
bloom, the children grow, and thought things came of themselves, I 
knew not whence nor asked the reason why. Things were so simple — 
my clear eyes so young — there seemed no reason why. Now I begin 
to wonder and to learn, to find the simplest thing some mystery great, 
to dimly feel some power long ago made all things plastic and with 
stress and strain doth mix and mould forever. To see in form only the 
expressed pattern ot a thought which hath not body nor form. 

Vel. Would I had thought. 1 only knew too well how fair I was, and how 
men loved the fair. I knew not fairness was the outer sign of what men 
dreamed within. 

Knowest thou thy master's likings — what his choice? 

Eug. I can but guess. Sometimes he standeth like a lover on fire before 
yon wanton nymph. Sometimes he shivers by Diana there as if his 
veins were ice. Sometimes he walks for hours 'twixt those two forms — 
that Satyr hideous, that Apollo rare — as if he strove to learn how one 
had grown to the other. Sometiines he kneels o'er that young Kros 
as 'twere a living babe, and smiles and smiles as if his smiles would 
sun it out from bud to blossom — from flower on to fruit. Yet do I 
sorhetimes think his inmost thought doth rest on wounded Anteros. 

Vel. On Anteros! I have not seen it. Where? 

Eug. Hast thou not seen it? Why, he seeks it oft. Yes, I have seen him, 
in yon corner dim, crouching beside it with some quavering lamp and 
weeping bitter tears. 

Vel. He seeks not his own child nor weepeth thus. Why, let me see it. 
[T'/'d'v bend behind a -pedestal?^ A wounded Anteros? I see no wound. 

Eug. Nor I, indeed; yet hidden wound must be, else why these t^visted 
limbs, this face of pain? 

Vel. There is some meaning in it I do not know. Go ! Leave me, girl, for 
1 would be alone. \Exit Eugia. 

'9 



20 PRAXITELES. [Act 2, Sc. i. 

Velina at first strays through the studio, listlessly, despondently, and without 
purpose. Then begins, excitedly, to ransack it, opening chests and drawers, 
moving tools, searching under rugs and robes. At last sinks into the sculp- 
tor s chair. 

Vel. [Bending to gaze in a polished shield which leans against a tripod^ I 
have not lost my fairness. Wherefore, then, doth he not think me fair? 
I am not old, nor seamed nor wrinkled by care's chiselling hand. I am 
not young — no unset slip of a thing, with a girl's crude shape unfixed 
to line and form. I have not balked half way 'twixt youth and age, 
missing one's dignity, the other's grace. If he loves beauty why doth 
he scorn me? 

Rises and stands, in study, before the statue of a nude female. 

This is most beautiful, a perfect form. Limbs which are shapely, 
lines and contours soft — all which might tempt a maid, much less a 
man, to sit and gaze for hours. And yet I know it not. Oh, I have 
seen on that same platform half a hundred stand, all perfect women, in 
nakedness divine, exacting from youth's fire and age's ice the meed of 
stintless praise. 

I knew them not ; they were to me but women. This had a crescent 
moon above its head, and he and art and they did therefore call 
"Diana!" And this one's hand a marble apple clutched, and so was 
hailed as Venus; crescents and apples being the outward sign 'twixt 
chastity and lust. Oh, could I seize on that lewd, mocking throng — 
those wanton models — I'd strip their robes until I found that she who 
shaped this beauty out ; and, finding her, would strip her fair flesh from 
her hideous bones, leaving her lie, a horror ! 

And yet they all have gone, these beauties fair, leaving to him this 
Satyr, rough and strange, this Eros all ungrown. 

Seats herself on a rough block of marble. 

What will he make of this? 'Tis hard, 'tis cold, 'tis unresponsive, 
dead. Yet will his chisel cleave its obdurate mass, — his fingers' warmth 
bring answer to his touch, — his spirit bid it live. He shall evoke, from 
this dull, senseless block, what form and type he wills. Was I less 
worth than this — had less within — that he should leave me so? 
Why did he fashion these, with patience, care, and leave me all un- 
wrought ? 

Turning to a pedestal, she draws the cloth aside and uncovers a mass of clay, 
showing only the rough outlines of a human head. 

I was but clay, and should have felt his hand moulding my plastic 
soul through forms of sense to its spirit's outside show. Nature had 



Act 2, Sc U] PRAXITELES. 21 

claimed me first and cast my clay in its old, oft-used mould ot gracious 
youth, as if to say, " By this I set my seal on all this plastic, fine cohc- 
siveness, and stamp this clay as one which a master-hand may shape to 
most high uses." He found me fair, and loved me fair, and left me 
fair, because 1 did not change to something else I knew not that he 
sought, and which, indeed, he sought not. 

After knock at the doovy to which Velina pays no attention, the Nurse enters, 

with child. 
Nurse. Is my master here? 

Vel. \_/lngrity.'\ Thy muster.'' Why thy master? Is not the child my 
own ? Why give him me, and get thee gone for good ! 

\^Exit Nurse. 
Velina hugs the child passionately. 

What shall we do, my child? What shall we do? He scorns me for 
my fairness and hates thee because thou art not fair. What shall we do? 

She takes the leopard skin from the chair of Praxiteles, and, making a bed of 
it on the floor, in the background, lays the child upon it. Then again wan- 
ders from statue to statue, stopping longest and oftenest at the Satyr, the 
Eros, and the Anteros. 

Those which were clothed in attributes of grace, finished and perfect, 
he hath discarded all. This Satyr is a man half made. The fire of lust 
burns in his face with fierce and shameless joy, — swells his coarse frame 
with an animal vigor fine, — thrills him to impose himself on some other 
life, and range, and breed, and change. 

This F.ros is an ungrown, wanton sprite, who soweth in the hearts of 
youth and maid great nature's quickening seed. Life's all unsatisfied 
with beings made, and shapes new things to be. This Anteros I know 
not. Methinks in this he speaks his meaning out, vet hides it from our 
sense. 'Tis something writhes because the thing it is, yet struggles for 
what it is not. I wonder were we perfect, one and all, we would be 
patient with our finished selves? When his w^ork's done 'tis done and 
it is naught; — 'tis the working to do it is great. 

Oh, my poor child ! Would we could sleep and wake in new-made 
forms which charmed and satisfied. 

Velina lies down beside the child, whom she takes in her arms. The studio 
darkens with the twilight, and curtain falls. 



•JSanquet=rooitt in {touse of |)raj;ttelJ6. 

Curtain rises showing Praxiteles and his male guests at a banquet. Female dancers and 

musicians at the side. 

Memmius. I thought we were bid here for purpose sage, and not for wine 
alone. 

Scaurus. Aye ! But all purposes are drowned in wine, and wake, when 
poured, like flies. 

Mem. Then let us spread them on the table here and see what light shall 
bid them first to crawl. Here is the red light of the quickening wine, — 
there is the glow our artist's genius sheds, — there the cold wisdom of 
the monied State, — and soon our Prince shall come and outshine all 
with his full light of culture. 

Scau. Aye ! and after him will come the cynic, who doth dog his step and 
cast deep gloom o'er all. 

Prax. I am commissioned by my Prince and State, yet feel no call from 
art. The stone whose coldness I am bid to wake is warmer than my 
soul. Largess and duty are like leaden weights which hold my genius 
down. I have had marshaled out each work of old, have heard it 
crowned with praise, and then been told I must surpass them all — 
outdo myself, and make perfection live. Were I but poor and free, 
the work my own, my brain would tingle, all my veins would throb, 
and the work spring finished to my waiting hand. Now I stand dumb- 
ly here and ask what Greece would have. 

Mem. Greece would have something that she hath not yet, yet knoweth 
not what she'ld have. There is no niche that's vacant of a god ; there 
is no power but that it hath a shrine. 

Scau. But there's many a god lacks worshippers, and many a shrine that 
hath no power. 

Diog. [From the doorway?;^ Then let the people worship themselves and 
the State find its power at their shrine. 

Prax. And am I to make a statue of the people ? What shall it be ? A 
strong man kneeling, like Narcissus at a pool, to worship his own 
image, or a fair maid hiding her face at the beauty of her own naked- 
ness .'' 



Act 2, Sc. 2.1 PRAXITELES. 23 

Diog. Or a limping boy ? 

Scan. Or a blind man with arms outstretched and groping for his way? 

Mem. Or a prisoner straining to burst liis bonds? 

Prax. Then it is not perfection Greece would have ! 

Diog. No! But something, rather, that shall make Greece see how all 
deformed she is, — how much she lacks, — how lame and halt and 
young ! 

Scan. Or that she knoweth her own ignorance and feeleth for the safer road. 

Mem. Or that she feels herself in shackling bands ot faiths worn out, tra- 
ditions dead, and cumbrous chains of law. 

Prdx. Hath art no beauty, then? Must she ever embody some wise saw 
or old proverb, and stand like a moral in stone with its ticket on, saying 
that I am, and so I teach, and this I mean? Are fair women like that? 
Do men look once and understand, or do they gaze forever, seeking the 
unknown grace, the hidden meaning which shapes this beauty out? Are 
men like that — great men? Do we not wonder ever at their greatness 
and reverence a dignity and power whose depth we cannot gauge ? Am 
1 to shape some figure whose meaning one can know at a glance, as they 
know Mars by his helmet and Jove by his thunderbolt? 

Enter Callias [the Prince) and his train. 

Cal. Are we too late, fair sirs? When the wine's out the wisdom's out, 'tis 
said. 

Diog. But no wisdom here; only carping, criticism, and care, — suggestions 
many and decisions few, — every one ready to kneel and no one know- 
ing what to kneel at. 

Cal. \_Dipping a rose in wine and sprinkling the female musicians. '\ Not 
knowing where to kneel \yith all this beauty here? Critics of arms like 
these and shoulders fair? Carping at rose-red lips and eyes like heaven ? 
Suggestions as to how niches shall be filled, when here are living statues 
all ready to step in ? 

Hath Greece grown old before its time? Have you old greybeards 
sworn to bury youth and joy ? Is the new statue to be an old and frosty 
content? Nay! It shall be a lusty fire! Something to do what youth 
ever doth with youth — tempt and be tempted? — To fall? To sink in 
shame? — Not so, forsooth! But to shrink in fearsome curiousness, to 
crave with longing fierce, to burn with passion, to tremble with desire, 
to struggle for possession, to glow with pride at the last barrier leaped, 
the last scruple overcome, at tardy justice to a starved desire, at the 
final union of one's body to one's soul, of both to the loving and the 
loved ! 

Were Greece and the world left to old age and the ancients, Greece 
would be dead ere now. The new statue shall be a woman, naked. 



24 PRAXITELES. [Act 2, Sc. 2. 

beautiful, and young, tempting tlie world to breed, through beauty, new 
beauty and new grace. 

Prax. Nay ! It shall be neither man nor woman; something greater than 
either — both! 

Cal. What ! An hermaphrodite ? 

Diog. An unknown monster? 

Mem. A sexual paradox? 

Scau. A human curiosity? 

Prax. Yes ! All and none. No monster, but the world's most perfect 
type. No paradox, but the blending of two opposites to make one like. 
No curiosity, but the frame in which curiosity dies and perpetual satis- 
faction lives. It is men and women who are monsters, paradoxes, curiosi- 
ties. The first being was neither man nor woman. Nature, in some 
wild freak, did make them fvvain she erst created one, and men and wo- 
men ever since have cultured the two varieties, picking out ever the 
manliest man, the womanliest woman, to push each farthest away from 
the old, ancestral type. Hath this one a gray and stubby beard? Then 
shall that one have yard-long tresses of golden silk. Doth this one 
bulge and swell with misplaced, exaggerated sinews? Then shall that 
one be all soft curves like the bendings of a floating swan. Doth this 
one battle with the elements and fight with beast and man ? Then shall 
this one lap herself safely in luxurious ease, till she tire of the thing she 
is. Then shall both, aweary of themselves, see in the other their heart's, 
their blood's desire, and, madly fierce each to possess the other, shall 
blend their beings in a hot caress — crazy to make two one, while 
nature laughs and turns those two to three. 

Cal. So, then, instead of nature's perfect form — some lovely virgin, some 
Adonis fair — you would set up some strange and bestial shape, to 
kindle in the veins of lustful youth lust's most unnatural fires ? 

Prax. Have I not said that nature's highest type ignored the difi^erence 
wide 'twixt sex and sex, blending two natures in one perfect whole? A 
bestial shape ! Why, this shall be so pure none will suspect its sex — 
none feel their own. 

Nay! Doubt not, fear not; art hath spoken at last. My heart's 
athrob, my fingers yearn for work. Oh, ye shall see how the clay shall 
body thought ! Ye shall witness the cold marble grow to a breathing 
life! Ye shall see me ransack Greece for forms of flesh — forms which 
have borrowed from ancestries old, this one a shell-like ear or instep 
high, this one a dimple, that a shoulder's curve, — each with some 
little gift of fleshly form, the which, conjointed, shall unite in one all 
the bold outlines of earth's perfect man, all the sweet softness of 
earth's fairest maid, all shapes of sense, all growth of soul within, till 
those who look shall in the body see only the form of unseen things 
that be. 



Act 2, Sc. 2.1 PRAXITELES. 25 

Enter the Master ^arryman, reeling. 

Cal. Why, how now, master; what's thy errand? 

Scau. If his head be no steadier than his heels 'tis a crooked message he 

brings. 
Mem. Pass him the flagon. Perhaps the new fumes will drive out the old. 

^arryman drinks. 

Cal. Well, what's thy word.'' 

^arryman. We have drawn the block to the door. 

Prax. Aye! and at a most unfit time. Why so belated? 

^arryman. 'Twas a heavy block and a rough road, and we drank to thy 

success at every vineyard on the way. 
Prax. And so get here after dark, to burst in, unbid, on the feasts and 

discussions of thy betters. Go, leave the wain at the door and come 

again to-morrow. 
^arryman. But my oxen must be at the quarry by daylight, and the wain 

with them. 
Prax. Then back up thy cart to the double door of my studio. Dump the 

block in and leave it. Are we to leave wine and music and beauty and 

the planning of perfect works for servile cares like thine? Go! Rid 

thee of thy load! Begone! — Play, girls, play! Dance, pretty ones, 

dance! Drink, friends, drink! 

The girls play a low, soft tune — the dancers move to a slow measure — 
Praxiteles bustles about the table passing goblets and flagons, and scattering 
roses among the guests. Then, suddenly, the crash of a great fall, and a 
woman's agonizing cry. The dancers and musicians huddle in a corner, the 
guests spring from the banquet-table, Callias and Praxiteles seize torches, 
fling open the doors of the banquet-room, and disclose a corner of the studio, 
in which they disappear. 

Prax. \_Rushing back, in horror.'] Dead ! Dead ! Wife and child, at one 
blow, crushed out of semblance by yon senseless stone ! 

Curtain. 



%tt 3.— ^ccne 1. 

SCtie jFottntain of l>alraaci6. 

A Public Square in Athens, with sculptured water-basin. Girls with water-jars. Street throng. 

The sunlight falls across square, leaving half in shadow, half in sun. The tub 

of Diogenes stands against the wall of a building in the shade. 

Diog. \_Seated in his tub.'\ Here, you girls ! The cynic hath a question to 
ask. Why is it ye seek this square so much ? 

Girl. To draw water for our mothers. 

Diog. No; 'tis to draw gossip for yourselves. And why is it so many 
youths do saunter through the square ? 

Girl. 'Tis on their road to the Gymnasium. 

Diog. 'Tis five squares off their road to the Gymnasium — 'tis on the road 
to you. But why, girls, do they come to you ? 

Girl. 'Tis a sorry youth will not come to a fair maid. 

Diog. But when one youth hath passed why wait ye for another ? 

Girl. One's looking wears not all the fairness off. 

Diog. \_Rises, turns his tub bottom up, and stands upon it.^ Come hither; 
listen ! [yf throng gathers round him.'] Ye are wanton gossips, come here 
to be seen of men. Ye show them a white shoulder when they turn the 
corner and a gray mantle when they near the font. Ye revel in your 
own charms in the moon's loneliness and your chamber's solitude, and 
hide your beauty from the world which owns it. Aye ! owns it, I say, 
though 'tis cheated of its dues. But there was a time when the first- 
comer claimed it and each maiden paid her due. What are ye good for ? 
To wait on your mothers ; to serve your husbands ? Ye cheat the one 
and betray the other, and most of all him whom ye tempt to wrong 
your husbands, sadden your mothers, and debauch yourselves. For ye 
tempt with a beauty ye show by halves, with a joy ye grudge to the 
getter, with a pleasure whose sting — remorse — ye hide. Why not be 
honest? Ye are soulless, senseless things, having one little gift, a shape- 
ly form, the which in shame ye hide. 

Now Greece hath need of ye. Not that Greece needeth girls or men ; 
for Greece hath so many that food faileth them, and roofs and firesides 
there are none. Yet these beings overmuch are but a surplusage of 
life, a common type that rots and dies from too scant food and shelter. 

26 



Act3, Sc. l.l PRAXITELES. 27 

But Greece, whose vaults are full o'ermuch with silver drachmas, hath 
none to spare for tiles and cloth and bread. She saves it all to fee some 
sculptor who, from senseless stone, shall shape a nondescript which 
needs no robes — which can endure the summer's heat, the winter's 
blast, and stand up naked on the outer walls; which needs no food, 
and which, most strange of all, lacketh those organs by which senseless 
brutes breed other brutes with appetites and pains. This stony form 
must be a model type, blending all torms of comeliness in one. 

Girl. Like me? 

Another girl. Or me? 

Diog. Nay! I know not. Our wiser sculptor saith Nature, like Greece, 
most parsimonious is, giving a dimple here and there a mole, but ful- 
some gifts to none. 

Callias and Praxiteles approach from opposite side of square. 

There comes the sculptor, there your gracious Prince. Ye that have 
gifts for Greece produce them now. 

Cal. Why, how now, cvnic, dost thou preach treason on the public square? 

Diog. Nay I but loyalty to Greece. I do instruct these maids and wives 
that as their men do give their bodies to the hungry State for work and 
war, for wound and scar, they do but owe the State their charms as well. 

Cal. How shall their beauty supplement the State? 

Diog. Ask your great sculptor there ! Doth he not know each hired 
model's oft-repeated curve? Doth he not see in every sculptured form 
a hireling's reflex — something made, not grown ? Shall Greece be mod- 
eled from a wanton drab, from some smooth model wanting thought 
and brain, from some patrician proud of her cold self? Nay! From 
some maiden through whose veins unknown courses the unmixed blood 
of Greece's prime; some scion of the people, poor as they, yet rich 
with Greece's fairness. Under these mantles coarse, these gowns of 
gray, some sculptured soul is closely hidden awav. 

Prax. Aye ! But to find it — to find it ! Oh, if I could but find the model 
of my dream ! But she must be a paragon. I would give my right 
hand — but nay, that would spite art, Greece, and myself — I would give 
the best my right hand hath ever done. Aye, if among these maids of 
Greece I can find my long-sought ideal, — if she will pose to me while I 
to art, — if my Prince approve the work, if the people applaud, if the 
State accept, — and last, most hard of all, if mine own self do crown 
the doing, — then will I give that she her own free choice; she shall 
pick out my studio's best. Nay! I will choose with a true artist's hand 
and give the best that is. 

T)iog. Most liberal indeed — in seeming. 'Tis a hard bargain thou drivest. 
Must she be a maid? 



28 PRAXITELES. [Act 3, Sc. i. 

Prax. If she be perfect, she shall be made in stone e'en though no maid in 
flesh. 

Cal. Aye! And if the sculptor find such an one — one whom the people, 
the State, the Prince approve, one whom art and he do both select as 
fitted to show forth and typify our future's high ideal — I will give her 
the best I have — myself. She who, being perfect, doth perfection hide, 
shall mother Kings to be and be my bride. 

Curtain. 



3fict 3. — d&mic 2. 

Slntrroom to S'tuDto. 

Callias and retinue, Diogenes, and throng of girls and women. 

Enter Eugia from the Studio. 

Lucius. I prithee, good Kugia, speak for me. Thy master will be mazed 
with all this beauty. Why, 'tis not the public square alone, nor yet even 
Athens; 'tis all Greece herself. Tell him I write a good fair hand, and 
am most modest. He cannot bear in mind not two in twenty of such 
varied charms. Let me, then, be his scrivener. I will sit one side the 
screen, and thou from on the other shall call forth what beauties I must 
write. 

Clean. Tell him to bid me in. I am not modest at all. But I am a fair 
measurer of waists and a right skillful spanner of wrists and ankles. 

Diog. Aye ! And neither of ye could tell a soul from a cheese-cake. 

First Woman. Why doth he keep us waiting so long? She is no beauty 
that detains him now — a sleek, fat tabby-cat with ne'er a curve. 

Second Woman. Why wait, then ? Shove thy thin form like a skeleton-key 
through the keyhole, and so defy the usher. 

Diog. Peace, women ! It is neither fatness nor leanness art demands, but 
soul. 

Third Woman. Then what doth he seek fair bodies for? There's more soul 
in those great saucer-eyes of that young, half-starved, unshaped chit of 
a thing than in all von wanton hussies. 

Diog. Aye! Those are the windows warm with the glow of the seething 
soul within. It art could fashion eyes in stone, and give their depth, 
their change, their color, then all were well and art were well. That is, 
if art were satisfied with souls at work and needed not the perfect work 
of souls. 

Third Woman. Whose soul is it he wants, and what kind of a soul ? 

Diog. Not mine, woman, nor thine. No soul born of vesterday — none of 
this generation. There be some here born ot Greek bodies into whom 
the soul of Greece did never enter. There be nobles here whose breed- 
ing place was the dunghill. There be commoners here whose blood 
runs pure from unknown kings of old. Have ye not read in Eastern 

29 



30 PRAXITELES. [Act 3, Sc. 2. 

writ how that in early time the sons of God saw that the maids of earth 
were fair and took them wives ? Think ye they came as gods to fright 
those earthly maids ? Nay, but as bashful youths, with honest brows, — 
as vigorous men, with strength's protecting arm, — as widowered seniors, 
tenderer for their loss. These are the sons of God whose virtues shine 
in traits inherited and gifts divine. 

While these three have been talking to Diogenes, Eugia has allowed some to 
depart from and others to enter in the Studio. 

Eug. My master'U see no more. 

Girl. What! Has he chosen, then.? I could show him something — 

Clean. Show it to me and I'll do better for thee than he will; for, if thou 
please him, he will make thee stone and cold; while I, if thou please 
me, will make thee good warm flesh. 

Luc. Come, fair ones, the master is surfeited with so much warm food. 
Let us here catalogue your charms and serve up coldly what he shall 
warmly choose with a greater relish because we do arrange the board. 

Cal. They do say that he who drinks too long, too much, too oft, and of 
too many vintages, cannot at last tell Chian wine from gall. Perchance 
'tis so with beauty. Here comes our sculptor dazed with all this grace. 

As Praxiteles enters from the Studio the throng of women rush upon and circle 

round him with excitement. 

' Curtain. 



3Cct d.— .^cene 3. 

pamt of Sltbta. 

Evening. An humble room. Spinning-wheel and distafF in one corner. A rude loom. Rich 
female garments hanging and lying on the plain Turniture. Althea alone, sewing. 

y4lt. My sight is dim with age — my eyes are tired — my fingers tremble. 
But my sight would have been keen enough once, and my eyes fresh, 
had I seen stuff's like these and dreamed my hands should finger them. 
A little more and the work will all be done, but I will keep on and on 
till my good man comes home. He shall not enter, weary from his 
toil, and find me waiting, idle. 

Enter Menas, in soiled clothes, carrying a mason s hatnmer and a square. 

Menas. How now, dear wife? Whence cometh all this splendor? These 
cloths of gold, these tissues of the East, seem as unmeet for our poor 
fittings here as do those gorgeous housings which barbarian hands spread 
over mules and camels. 

Alt. I know not whence they come nor whose thev are. A servant brought 
them here. She said her mistress, some great dame of state, had heard 
my hands were skillful. Her bungling slaves only made darns more 
rough and rents more large. She'd missed some feast because they were 
not ready. Another feast betides and she's in fear. She promised me 
a goodly sum if I should have them perfect ere two more suns had set. 

Menas. And canst thou do it? 

Alt. 'Tis already done, but she shall wait lest she may measure my skill 
by the time it takes to use it. But thou, good man, how farest it with 
thee? Didst thou get thv place on the State's last work? Art thou to 
oversee the men who lay the base for our great sculptor's statue ! 

Menas. Not so. There were younger men before me; and, not to lose my 
day, I took the work that offered. Soter, the mortar-mixer, hath just 
married and taken his young wife home to his own mother's house, and 
so's in haste to build. Better new-married peace in a hut on the hill 
than a young wife's temper ruined and reverence for an old mother lost. 

Alt. It grieves me sore to see thv age and skill scorned for the work of 
green and tactless youth. 

3' 



32 PRAXITELES. [Act3,Sc3. 

Menas. All that they see is age ; the skill shows not. 'Tis a great thing to 
build for a great State. I might be proud to think I'd laid the base for 
one of Greece's marvels. But I shall square this hut as 'twere the 
King's own palace. I'll sink its base-stones deep, I'll lay its lintel 
level, I'll spread its hearth so true, so close, there shall not gape a 
crack not even for a cricket to hide in. I'll make my work so just, so 
true, that they who live therein shall daily learn life's greatest lesson — 
honesty to self. 

Alt. Oh, husband ! Thou'rt too true and good for a world so false and 
wicked. 

Menas. Perchance, dear wife ; that is, if truth and good find their reward 
in us to-day. When young we recked not all the need and worth of 
truth and goodness. Age hath one merit: When the body's eyes grow 
dim the soul's eyes grow more clear. We easier see what it is great to 
live for. That which we see our children yet may do. 

Alt. And was there naught new in the city ? 

Menas. Aye ! All the town's agog with our great sculptor's model. The 
cynic from his tub hath made a speech, bitter with railing and soaked 
with paradox. He hath set the city wild. The statuary hath promised 
his greatest work to her that shall prove a perfect model, and the Prince 
hath pledged himself that if she prove perfect she shall be his bride. All 
the beldames of the backstreets have set to painting their faces, and the 
fishwives from the market are anointing themselves with fish-oil to take 
off the smell of fish. 

Alt. And hath this clamor reached the sculptor's house? Think thee! 
our daughter's there, and she so innocent and young; for there will be 
schemes and strategy, even foul play, perchance. 

Menas. Aye ! They have already begun. Young maids and old women 
are beseeching her with gauds and trinkets that she let them privily in 
to show their beauty unawares ; and gay gallants are beseeching her with 
good broad pieces of gold that they may be let in still more privily to 
feast their surreptitious gaze on unsuspecting charms. 

Alt. Gay gallants — -maids and old women — trinkets and gold-pieces! 
Why, what are all these ? Why should not Eugia herself — 

Menas. Why should not Eugia what? 

Alt. 'Tis naught. Only a mother's fancy; only a fond mother's wild 
thought. 'Twas naught; thou needst not know. 

Menas. Aye, but I do know ! What thy woman's wit jumpest at my 
man's slowness can plod to in time. Why should not Eugia herself 
out-plan the planners and carry off the prizes herself? But, prithee, tell 
me, wife, if Eugia did carry off the prizes what should we do with a 
Prince ? 

Alt. We would divert our blood through the body of our daughter into 
the veins of Kings. 



Act 3, Sc- 3.] PRAXITELES. 33 

Menas. And what would wc do with the great work — a statue? 

Alt. If the worst come to the worst thou couldst crack it up in pieces for 
the lime-kiln, that its mortar might build huts for the King's grandchil- 
dren, who, mostlike, will be exiles trom the throne. 

Enter Eugia. 

Menas. Why, here's our daughter now! Is aught amiss? 

Eug. Nav, father, all is well. Only 'tis so long since I saw thee. When I 
came last thou wast not here. And I was so homesick and so weary. 

First it was all clay and stone, and only the sculptor and I in that 
great studio all the livelong day. Some days he scarce did speak a 
word, but he did mould and 1 did mix all day. Now 'tis neither mixing 
nor moulding; 'tis people, people, all day long. They throng about 
the gate, they stare at the house trom the street corners as if some 
wonder lived there, they besiege the doorway, they steal in unnoticed 
by unwatched doors, they waylay every one who goeth out of the 
house. Oh, I am so sick of them all, and he and 1 do never get, one 
with the other, a word alone. 

Alt. I'm glad thou'rt come. 

Eug. \Kneeling by her mother and laying her head on her shoulder 7\ And I 
am gladder. Oh, I need my home and those who love me. The great 
world's all too great for those who were born little. I never felt it here. 
Our home's so small, our wavs so plain, our folk so level. But there 
they're ranked in different stations all, each looking down on each and 
all on me. 

When we were there alone I felt not so. I knew that he was great, 
yea, passing great, and so did justly hold the place his greatness earned. 
I knew that I was small and knew my place; and circled round him, 
shining with his light, as doth the moon with its reflected gleam keep 
its true distance from th' illuming earth. Now 'tis as it some comet 
strange and wild hath rushed between us, dragging in its wake a swarm 
ot stinging stars. 

Enter Nyctelia, dancing gayly, in careless attire and crowned with vine leaves. 
The two girls rush into each other s arms. 

Eug. Oh, thou art welcome, welcome ! I longed for home so much, and com- 
ing now, thought in these parents, dear and old and gray, the sweetest 
things earth held. But now 1 know that youth doth most need youth. 

Nyct. Aye, and the work of youth. See, I am worn with toil, yet dance 
me home. My hands are stained, mv mantle's torn, mv robe's awry. 
I have been picking grapes the whole day long, and while I picked I 
laughed, and, when I rested, romped. Feel how my heart beats — see 



34 PRAXITELES. [Act 3, Sc. 3. 

how red my cheeks ! Oh, I did run so fast, though not in fear, but that 
he would not catch me. 

Eug. I would I had been with thee. 

Nyct. Then come to-morrow. Thy lips look dull, thy cheek's the color 
of clay, thy hand like marble. Come, thou shalt bear a pannier on thy 
head, and, reaching too low, the youths shall steal the cherries from thy 
lips. Leave thy staid sculptor with his statues cold, and live where shape 
is warm. We'll gambol through the vineyards, dance and sing, and 
make our work our play. 

Eug. To-morrow? I cannot come. 

Nyct. Is there more clay to grind ? 

Eug. 'Tis the last day for choosing. He hath not found his model yet. I 
must be there to watch ; perchance my sense may find one perfect whom 
he sendeth thence. 

Menas. Come, dear wife, put up these garments. Thou sayest they're 
done, but perchance thou deceivest us in kindness, and when all's abed 
you'll burn yon flickering sconce and burn your life out in the night's 
late work. Come, get needles for these giddy young things and see if 
the one can sew as skillfully as she can mix and the other mend as 
quickly as she can break. 

Eug. If my mother will trust me I will sew. 

Nyct. And I will not trust myself nor thee. Thy joints are stiff with 
kneading clay and my fingers are red with the grape. 

Alt. In truth the work is done, but were it not there rests one day before 
the servant call. 

Eug. Why, whose are they, mother? 

Alt. The robes of some great dame, I know not who. Fold them away and 
lay them in this chest. Thus shall some day their present owner rest. 

Eugia and Nyctelia fold up the garments and pack them in a chest, displaying 
and admiring them as they do so. 

Menas. Come, wife, we have both worked and waited long; let us away 

and get our meal. 
Nyct. Thou sayest they will not call ere sundown of to-morrow? 
Alt. Aye ! Not till then. \_Exeunt Althea and Menas. 

Nyct. They're all but in, Eugia. Leave me now; go help thy mother. 

\_Exit Eugia. 

Nyctelia goes to outer door and brings in the grape pannier. She then selects 
two sets of garments from the chest and lays them in the pannier. Althea 
enters suddenly and detects her. 

Alt. Why, Nyctelia, what doest thou? Wilt thou pick grapes to-morrow 
in a royal robe, or dost thou know and take them to their owner? 



Act 3, Sc 3.] PRAXITELES. 35 

N\i/. Nay, godmother! "Twas but sport, a jest. I did l)iit borrow them 
for one short day. 

////. One day ? 

Nye/. Canst thou not guess? 

yi/t. Eugia! 

Nyct. Ave, Kugia! Our thought's the same. The sculptor gave her lib- 
erty this night; we'll steal it for her to-morrow. Yes, it" she do but act 
her part, freedom her whole life long. We will persuade her. I'll bid her 
sleep this night with me; you shall consent and urge. Then I will tease 
her ail the livelong night, and thou to-morrow shall early take her place 
and make excuse she's sick and cannot come. Is it a plot — agreed? 

All. Aye ! Be it so. [it.v/V Althea. Nyctelia shuts the chest and carries 

the pannier outside the door. 
Enter Eugia. 

Eug. What ! The lid shut and all things packed away ? () Nyctelia, I 
have lived so long mid figures nude that clothing lost its worth. Yet, 
passing strange, now I'm so eager tor these beauteous things 1 cannot 
say them nay. I'm like a girl taking her first peep at her bridal robes. 
Let me have one look more. 

Nyctelia seats herself on the chest. 

Nyct. What folly's this? When all female Athens is aching to strip itself 
before one man that he may show it stripped forever, thou, like a girl, 
art hankering for long gowns. 

Eug. Show me the robes, I say ! 

Nyct. Wouldst thou wear them ? 

Eug. Oh, if I might, but once! 

Nyct. Hast thou the courage? 

Eug. If I looked again I might have. 

Nyct. Well, look then. 

Eugia opens the chest. 

Eug. Whv, Nyctelia, thou hast deranged them all. The one I wanted lay 
right here atop. [_Fumbles in the chest. '\ Why, 'tis gone — two are gone 

— I know them well! 

Nyct. Go to the door, quick ! Some one has stolen in on us and borne 
off the robes. They can't be far. 

Eugia runs to the door and returns dragging in the pannier. 

Come here, sillv. Wilt thou spoil all with thy truthfulness, or wilt 

thou be a queen ? 
Eug. A queen ! 
Nyct. Ave, if thou wilt do as thou art bid. Thy mother and I are agreed. 

To-night thou sleepest with me and takest thy rest; who with the next 

— why, heaven alone knows best. 

Curtain. 



51ct L—^ttnt 1. 

3lntE=rDoni of |Jra);itEl£6. 

Praxiteles and CalKas. 

Cal. Well, master, 'tis the last day. If the gods send thee not better luck 
Athens shall lack a goddess. A goddess, say I ? Why, what shall we 
call it — the sexless thing? 

Prax. The god of gods ! Divinities have sex. All those great beings 
which the race of men has shaped by its own image and then hath 
christened gods — all these have sex. But canst thou dream the real 
and absolute is aught but one, and, being one, doth not combine in one 
more perfect form the attributes of both? 

Cal. Aye ! But thy summons hath been so conceived it brings monstros- 
ities from every clime. Those most divergent from the natural type 
commend themselves as perfect. 

Prax. All these divergencies were nature's freak. Each aberration from 
the pristine mould was hailed as beauty and was pushed too far. I seek 
no monster, but some perfect form having the female grace, the strength 
of man, unconscious of its sex. 

Cal. Thou seekest too much. Grant thou thy dream were true. Grant 
the first human were a two-sexed thing. Grant that our strife and our 
most high ideal were to forget the satyr in us born — the wanton in us 
bred. Now we are human — human youths and men who must wed 
human maids and make them wives, and make them turn to mothers. 
Come, master, it is not luck thou needest, but a less critical mind. 
Make me thy chooser, and by all the gods and goddesses — by Venus 
the fair and Diana the chaste — I will pick thee out a beauty who shall 
be Aphrodite and Apollo in one ; that is, if thou takest my word for it. 

Althea opens the door. 

Prax. Has she come? 

Alt. Who, master? 

Prax. Who ? Why, thy daughter ! Thou saidst she did but lie too late 
abed. 'Tis the first time she hath been gone all night. She hath ever 
been here in the morning. And now 'tis late and she has not come, and 
the work and the studio's all awry. 

36 



Act 4, Sc. J.] PRAXITELES. 37 

.///. She seemed weak iind taint, master. I teareii wlieii she hiuic me fill 

her place she was not well and 1 should suit thee ill. 
Prax. Nav, thou doest well enough, 
y///. But she is come, Sir. 
Prax. What, thy daughter? 
All. Nav, but the model thou expectest. Her maid did hid me say she 

whom thou long hast waited now doth wait. 
Prax. Is she fair? 
Alt. The maid? Yes, passing fair. 
Prax. Nay, woman, the mistress. 
Alt. I cannot tell, she is so closely veiled. But she steppeth royally and 

walkcth like a queen. 
Prax. Show her in — alone. 

Alt. Nay, but she will not enter alone. She will keep her maid by her. 
Cal. Well, let them in. Prithee, good sculptor, be reasonable. If the 

maid have a tair face and the mistress a fair form, take thou thine one 

and grudge me not the leavings. 
Prax. Well, show them in. 

Enter two ladies, richly dressed, one with uncovered face, and one heavily 
veiled and her figure covered. They bow to Caltias. 

Cal. There stands the sculptor, most fair dames. I am no artist great — 

only an humble servitor of art. 
Maid. Haunting art's studio with shrewd designs on nature? 
Cal. Sav, rather, waiting to compare nature with art. Wilt thou help me? 
Maid. Prithee, I came to serve my mistress, not to find a master. 
Prax. \To Mistress.~\ Thv walk is excellent, thy gait serene. Thy carriage 

speaks a shapely form. Thy head's well set. But I must see thy face. 
Mistress. My face ! Thou seest faces every day. Take thy pick of the 

fairest, but leave me free. 
Prax. But I must see thv face if I mould or carve. 
Mistress. Then thou carvest not me. I am not eager. 'Twas not for fame 

I sought. I would be all unknown. 
Prax. Dost thou know how to pose? 

Mistress. I am no model. I can be my own plain self alone. 
Prax. Why, I must have a face. 
Mistress. Then fancy that one \_pointing to maid'\ on my shoulders. Canst 

thou find a prettier? \_Mistress turns her head disdainfully^ 
Cal. Nay, never — forgive me, lady, except thine. \_Maid turns away dis- 
dainfully and makes a mouth at him.'\ Forgive me, lady, no, never! 

What shall I sav? Ah! here's the truth: I have never seen greater 

beauty than this, for thy face is covered. 

Both salute him. 



38 PRAXITELES. [Act 4, Sc. J. 

Prax. Thou speakest well, fair dame, and steppest well, but so did many 

who have failed in all. Hast thou no further proof? 
Mistress. If thy platform is ready then I am ready, too. 
Prax. But if all were to enter there who simply claimed, the day and studio 

would be all too full. 

Mistress signals the maid, who winds her mistress's veil about her head and 
then removes the mantle., disclosing arms bare to the shoulder and uncov- 
ered shoulders. 

Mistress. I am ready. 
Prax. I, too, am ready now. 

Praxiteles, Mistress, and maid walk toward the door of Studio. Callias 
hurries after them and seizes the maid ' s hand. 

Cal. Nay, thou'rt not needed there. I need thee here. 
Maid. When thou art my master I'll obey thee. That is, if I teach thee 
not first to obey me. But now I'll serve — my mistress. 

Makes a pretty mouth at him and disappears in the Studio. Callias stands 
disconsolate at the door of Studio, which after a while opens, showing the 
saucy face of the maid. 

Maid.^\\3.t\ Peeping! Fie, for shame. Wait, and I'll come anon. 

Callias seats himself in a dejected attitude, but springs to his feet as the 

maid reappears. 

Cal. Now, pretty one, tell me thy tale. Who is thy mistress, and what art 
thou? 

Maid. Thou hast said it ; she is my mistress, and I her maid. 

Cal. I thought she was some Princess, come from far, and thou her maid 
of honor. 

Maid. Thou hast said it; so are we. Now, who art thou? 

Cal. I am the Prince. 

Maid. I thought so — the prince of revelers. 

Cal. Nay ! Believest thou not me ? 

Maid. What ! Believest thou me ? Art thou so simple ? Just for a pretty 
face to believe a pretty tale? Canst thou not see we are not dames of 
state ? Just two wild girls, that's all, who've donned their betters' robes 
to masquerade in. 

Cal. I do believe thou art no maid at all, but some great unknown Prin- 
cess, and she, thy maid, doth pass herself for thee. 



Act4, Sc. 1.1 PRAXITELES. 39 

Maid. Art thou so keen? Then 1 am keener still. I do believe thou 
art no Prince at all, hut common blood like me. Oh, thou belicvest 
not! Why, see my hands, stained with the blood of grapes I pluck for 
hire. 

Cal. So she's thy mistress, then. She hath a comely arm and neck most 
fair. Is her bust shapely? 

Maid. Aye, her toot is a right shapely one, and her busk fits it right well. 

Cal. I said bust, not busk. Is her bust shapely? 

Maid. Her bust? Whv, yes, I've heard her mother sav that when she 
was an infant, scarcely weaned, and took her bath, buried in perfumed 
water to her waist, her little back was like an arrow straight, her breast 
like Cupid's own. 

Cal. Nay, nay ! Thou beatest about the bush. 

Maid. And thou thrustest thy hands in it to steal nests under my keep- 
ing. If my lady hide her charms from thee, shall I describe them ? Get 
thee gone for a wanton ! Why thinkest thou she hath great charms? 

Cal. Have I not said that which I saw was comely. 

Maid. And so must think that comelicr which thou sawest not? What! 
Shall I spend my time dilating on another's charms when thou sayest 
not a word of mine own ? 

Cal. Have I not said thou hast a pretty face? 

Maid. And is that all thou carest tor? 

Cal. Nay, by my troth ! And now I swear that she who showed so much 
did show her best, and thou concealing most dost hide the best. Come, 
dort this mantle. Be thy own fair self. 

Maid. For a fellow of no consistency, like thee ? Why, a moment ago 
thou swarest I were she and she were I, and didst hunger equally for 
her beauty thou didst see and mine thou knewest not. Why, thou art 
an idle fellow, I'm sure, with naught to do save to balance the charms 
of rival damsels and then be false to both. I wish I had thee in the 
vineyards once. I'd train thee. 

Cal. How wouldst thou train me? 

Maid. Thou shouldst carry my basket all day, and at quitting time — 

Cal. Well, at quitting time? 

Maid. Well, and if thou wert good mayhap I'd hold a grape between 
my lips, — thus, — and wert thou hungry, why thou mightest steal it 
from me. 

Cal. Like this ? \jraking it from her lips with his.~\ 

Maid. Aye, and like this ! \_Kissing him.'] Why, if thou hadst no beard I'd 
think they were a girl's. 'Twas so I kissed thee — I torgot thee man. 

Cal. But I do know thee woman — the sweetest, merriest, wholesomest 
piece of flesh mv eves did e'er yet rest on. Hear! 'Tis thy mistress 
calls. 

\^Exit Maid. 



40 PRAXITELES- [Act 4, Sc U 

Enter Praxiteles. 

Prax. I've found a paragon. 

Cal. And I another. 

Prax. Hast thou, a Prince, been tampering with some noble lady's maid ? 

Cal. She knows me not a Prince, and I think her some Princess in dis- 
guise. 

Prax. Then must my paragon be the lady's maid, and, being so. Princess 
or maid, she hath been pledged thy bride. 

Cal. Princess or maid, I'll take her for my bride. 

Enter the Mistress and maid. 

Prax. Thou'lt come to-morrow, fair dame ? 

Mistress. Aye ! Twice I'll come, so thou must haste thy clay, to fix my 
likeness ere I speed away. 

Curtain. 



%tt a.—^tene 2. 

antr room of prantrlee. 

(_Two days later.) 

Callias and the Maid. 

Ca/. 'Tis the last day, fair girl. 

Maid. Ave, we are well quit of a hard three days' sufferance done for the 

good of Greece. 
Cal. What! Hast thou found no pleasure with me? 
Maid. Thou doest to pass one's time with when one cannot have thy 

master. 
Ca/. And dost thou still think me the sculptor's man? 
Maid. Am I a fool, to bandv kisses with a Prince? 
Ca/. Nay, but I am the Prince. 

Maid. Then thou art not for me. Thou'rt sworn to wed my better. 
Ca/. Ave, curses on it ! 'Twill be a long sufferance of wedlock, done for 

the good of Greece. 

Enter Praxite/es and Mistress. 

Prax. Then we must part to-day ? 

Mistress. Yes, for great duties call me hence. 

Prax. How shall we meet, and when? 

Mistress. When all thy work is done, and bravely done — crowned by thy 

Prince, approved bv the State, hailed great bv critics and acclaimed by 

men — when the day comes that statue leaves these walls I will be here 

to bid it sweet farewell. 
Prax. And thou wilt show to me earth's greatest work, the face I dream, 

set on a form so fair? 
Mistress. And thou wilt give to me thy greatest work ? 
Ca/. And I will give mvself to thee, sweet bride. 
Mistress. How shall I prove myself? 
Prax. I'd know that form among ten thousand. 
Mistress. Nay ! I must have some pledge. 

Prax. Well, cut off from mv garment here a piece, and bear it with thee. 
Mistress. Some tricksome maid will match it. 

4' 



42 PRAXITELES. [Act4,Sc.2. 

Prax. Well, here's a proof! \_Strikes off with a hammer the little- finger of a 

statue^ Some artist great may match that finger's shape — not art itself 

can fit it to such fracture. 
Mistress. Thou hast ruined a beautiful thing. 
Prax. Why, her whole form's not worth thy little finger, and thy little 

finger is worth her whole form. 
Maid. Break it in half, and give me my guerdon. 
Cal. What wilst thou claim ? 
Maid. If I were to claim thy promises 'twould take all the fingers in the 

world to carry them. 
Mistress. Will you pardon us a moment, fair sirs, while we robe ourselves 

for the street ? 

\_Exeunt Mistress and maid to Studio. 

Prax. [Clapping his hands for Althea.'] Go seek the dames, good Althea. 
Tell them If they live far the dusk will fall and find them all belated in 
the throng. We'll see them safely through the brawling crowd, but 
leave them free at last to find their homes — unknown. 

[Exit Althea. 
Cal. We'll tell them so, but I shall follow close and find the covert where 
such game doth hide. 

Enter Althea. 

Alt. I find them not, good Sirs ! They're surely gone. 

[Exeunt Callias and Praxiteles in haste. 

Curtain. 



3llct 5.— ^ccnc 1. 

Sitnlio of pravitrlrc. 
Praxiteles is seen working on his statue. 

Prax. 'Tis almost done! How oft hefore I've said that self-same thing 
and found it talse. i'.ver the finish is a thing beyond; yet State and 
people call and say my art is slow. The critics say I'm old — my nerve- 
less hand hath lost its vouthful skill. That youthful hand perhaps 
had dashed in haste some striking image off — some effigy of things that 
move and live. My older hand follows the guidance of an older thought 
to a greater work than youth's. Some new perfection leads me ever on. 
This must not be an effigy of things that are, but art's true dream of 
things that ought to be. Note here these breasts of snow — these per- 
fect orbs — pure as Diana's are and just as chaste. They're perfect! 
Aye, too pure. So pure they're thoughtless. Men will applaud and 
women call them fair; art will approve their perfect measurement; but 
I shall find them wanting. They're too unruffled. Never a pang hath 
made them heave in pain. No lover made them pant in ecstasy. 

Here on the perfect curve of this left breast I'll print a wayward 
dimple. 

Enter Eugia. 

Eu^. There are visitors, master. 

Prax. Who? 

Eug. The Prince, and the great gentlemen Scaurus and Memmius. 

Prax. Go bid them enter. 

Enter Callias, Scaurus, and Memmius. 

Cal. Good master, to me thou hast been most indulgent. From the first 
conception of thy plan to thv model's choosing, and through all the 
modelling and roughing ot thy work, thou hast made me an admiring 
associate. Would I could have served, as well as admired. But these 
gentlemen, who bear before the public many cares of state, know only 
by my rapturous report of how thou tarest on a nation's work. To tell 
the honest truth, men deem thy choice fantastic and me a servile flat- 

43 



44 PRAXITELES. [Act 5, Sc. J. 

terer. Thou hast cultured me by long usage to the fashion of thy 
scheme — canst thou not tell these sober men in sober words what sober 
meaning thy strange image bears ? 

Mem. 'Tis true that when the State commissioned thee it gave thee un- 
taxed license — set thee free to choose thy will and work it. Now that 
thy scheme grows ripe the uncultured ones do doubt thy sober meaning. 

Scau. Aye ! An hermaphrodite seems a fit image for some public bath, or 
fitter yet to grace some winding stair leading from banquet-hall of easy 
dames to lust's soft couch above — a harlot's beckon to a brute's desire. 
But what does it mean to Greece? 

Prax. Now damned be every brute whose prurient thought mixes lust's 
mire with high art's purest dream ! To the foul all things are foul, 
while nature's pure stand in heaven's image — naked, unashamed. Go 
gaze on beauty with your hungry eyes till horns start from your fore- 
heads ! Go mate with brutes till your feet be cloven and wool shall line 
your thighs ! Explain ! Explain ! Do the sibyls explain the oracles ? 
Am I to kneel for a lifetime and worship at the feet of art, and fashion 
forth so shallow an oracle in stone that ye can fathom it at a glance? 
My work shall speak for itself. If your dumb ears cannot hear, go 
strain to hear Jove's thunder. My work shall show for itself If 
your eyes cannot reach so high, go bend o'er some pool in the gutter 
and see your own image there. I've naught to say. 

Cal. But, friend, the State — they're envoys of the State! 

Prax. I care not for the State ! My art's my own. When the work's done 
— if 'tis done — and the State accept, then, when it crowns our proud 
Acropolis, let Greece look on and wonder. Then let it marvel, criti- 
cize, complain. Till then my work's my own! I am the master here! 

\_Exeunt Scaurus and Memmius in anger and dismay. 

Cal. I was wrong to bring them here. 

Prax. Nay, thou wert right. 'Tis only the sons of Kings can be Princes. 
Neither age, wisdom, nor culture give the true grace of rule. Oh! if I 
were a Prince I should offend my people all. Those who are born to 
the purple drink in sweet courtesy as the purple grape sweet wine. I, 
who am a subject, can ill brook to be questioned, criticized, commanded. 
And thou art ever commanded by a thousand carping, silly tongues, 
which, proffering praise and service, do subtly damn and chide. And 
thou acceptest it all as homage, and renderest them all the more thy 
slaves the more they think that they are ruling thee. 

Cal. 'Tis not the King who rules. Great men like thee do rule through 
Kings when King and man agree. 

Callias and Praxiteles clasp each others'" hands. Then Callias seats himself 
and Praxiteles resumes work on his statue. 



Act 5, Sc, I.] PRAXITELES. 45 

Prax. Apollo was u man; yet hast thou seen his face glow in soft beauty 
like some woman fair, and soft and round his limbs — a girlish grace. 
Diana was a nymph; and yet her brow firm with decision, while her 
sinews strained show forth a man's stout purpose. 

If my hand's purpose fail not I shall show one exquisite form, of 
male and female blent, so shrewdly mixed no scrutiny can see which 
doth o'erbalance the other. 

Cal. But e'en Apollo hath not breasts like these. 

Prax. Nav ! But the first man had, and men even now own the dwarfed 
organ whose high tiniction's lost. 

Cal. I see the manhood in those wiry arms. 

Prax. Why, those are woman's — perfect and the best — the true arms of 
my model ; arms that show effort and strength and patient work and 
skill. I never dreamed to see so fair a form till fate had set me on some 
mount, unseen, where fauns and dryads, unknowing of man's gaze, 
sported and gamboled through long moonlit hours. ()h! 1 am surfeited 
with dull round limbs — the flabby flesh of pampered idleness. 

Cal. And yet thou girdlest close thy sexless form. Why, Greece is all 
agog to see how art's latest ideal shall be a monster and yet useful and 
beautiful. 

Prax. Nature doth minister with organs strange to needs and uses high. 
Art would commend such use to man, yet rate the organ lower than the 
use. I aim to mould a truth, yet drape it so that eyes must strain to 
make its outlines clear, and seeking long shall find more truths than 
one. 

Go! Rest in peace! Let critics carp and the dull throng protest; 
Greece and my Prince shall have the artist's best. 

\_Exit Callias. 

Eug. Thy day goes fast, mv master. Shall I not refuse thee to all comers? 
Prax. Aye, to all, to all ! I'hey try my patience when they mean the best. 

Eugia seats herself in the far corner at her table, and Praxiteles resumes 

work on his statue. 

Prax. See here, Kugia, look upon this breast. 'Tis round, too round — 
too round and smooth. I told the Prince I'd put a dimple on it — a 
wayward dimple. Would that be art — merely to break the outline of 
a curve, for effect, and not for meaning? Nay, it shall have a thought! 
Not a mere flesh-mark, born in nature's sport, but the first impress left 
by nature's stress on the young heart's fleshly shield. I'll put a dainty 
dimple on this breast, as if some young love flying by had flecked it 
with his wing. 



46 PRAXITELES. [Act 5, Sc U 

Praxiteles works in silence for a few moments, then bends his face closer to 
the statue and starts back in anger and dismay. 

Why, here's a spot — a dull, red, obvious stain! A flaw on purity! 
A footstep hence 'tis scarcely visible. A yellow bead not half so big as 
purity's first tear at purity's first mischance. 'Tis only skin deep ! The 
scalpel's touch will bid it gone forever. 

Works again in silence for a few moments. 

It will not out! Each added touch doth but make wide the stain. 
The surface show was but a guide-point to the evil's seat. If I could 
stop but here this hollow sweet should be the impress of a Cupid's kiss. 
Young love should not skim by with flecking wing, but pause and press 
his lips to this bosom fair. Art cannot pause; it must go on to art's 
supreme decree. Love doth not stop with love's first kiss, but quaffs 
what erst it sipped. I must go deeper ! 

From first love's dimple and from Cupid's kiss I must carve inward 
to that deeper print which woman's passion moulds to woman's pain. 

Praxiteles works again in silence. 

How fair it was at first. Why was I not content with surface beauty? 
All beauty is outside, like the bubble's show, and impious the hand 
which pricks that bubble's film. Earth, air, and sea and sky, and the 
human form divine hide unseen horrors. 

Eugia, come ! See ! I had moulded a perfect curve, and, pricking 
perfection, have brought to light a scar, a wound, a flaw. 

Ages unnumbered hence ten million lives shed their blanched skele- 
tons on ocean's bed to form that marble which earth's later pangs have 
heaved on Grjecia's peaks. A few, sin-born, carried their foulness with 
them to their tomb for me to resurrect. But, being dead, their foulness 
died out with them. Death's a boon to pain, disease, and guilt. Life's 
a plague when its fair surface hides the pregnant seeds of future woe and 
pain. 

How fair my wife, Velina ! She was beauty's self in color, curve, and 
mould; yet deep within a pregnant seed of earth's worst human fruit. 
I pitied her at first. That is, when, bridehood past, she mothered that 
warped, distorted imp of pain. And then, as she grew beautiful and he 
groaned more, my pity turned to hate. I hated her that I, a lover of 
true form, should father on such beauty so hideous a form. 

Oh, I was wrong, Eugia ! 'Twas not her fault ! Ages ago some foul 
progenitor drank in that poison which hath ceaseless flowed through 
countless veins to hers. She showed it not, yet poured its essence out 
into that cup which she and I did mould. 



Act 5, Sc. I.| PRAXITELES. 47 

If I am wroth witli this cold marble whose ancestral stain the chisel's 
point shall purge, how shall 1 not be wroth with stains that propagate 
from age to age, and soil life's current through unending years? 

Eugia rests her hand on his shoulder, and stands, leaning on him. They gaze 
on the statue, oblivious of anything strange in their proximity. Eugia re- 
sumes her seat and Praxiteles again works. 

Prax. See! 'Tis done! No stain is left! Only a deeper dent of white re- 
mains — a nest for loves to sleep in. A happy thought I 'Twill win the 
world's applause. "Why hath he done it?" asks the gaping crowd. A 
voung love's wing — a Cupid's kiss — a lover's elbow — a hundred rea- 
sons equally apt and true, and all new steps to fame. But I — I in my 
heart shall ever recognize this subterfuge of art. A trick of skill to 
shape a virtue from a stain and flaw. 

I need not blush. I made the statue, not the stain. But ah ! woe's 
me! I made a living form, more stained than this, which death alone 
could mend. 

Eugia! Kugia! Where is my Anteros? What? Here in the studio? 
I had forgot it. Hide it! Nay, have it moved out to the rubbish 
heap! Keep the doors locked to the waste room! Oh, if men could 
only see the beginnings of life how they would despise the end! Let 
no prying eyes see my blunders, my failures — my soulless forms. 
Judge me by finished work, and when I die let my crude firstlings all 
in darkness lie. 

Curtain. 



3llct 5.—M>tmt 2, 

Wett iFountain of SalnxattB. 

Diogenes is seated in his tub at the side of the square. Marcia and Flora, veiled and in the 

robes borrowed by Eugia and Nyctelia, are chaiFering at a market stall. 

Laco stands behind them holding a hamper. 

Enter Callias and Praxiteles. 

Cal. By all the gods, we are in luck ! The heavens have fallen, and Venus 

and Luna have dropped clean into the market-place ! 
Prax. Why, what seest thou? 
Cal. What see I ? Why, our nymphs of the studio. I will to them at 

once. 
Prax. What! And have them fly, like Diana from Actason? 
Cal. Diana did not fly. 
Prax. Aye ! But Actseon would have been better off had either of them 

flown. 
Cal. See! Here's their man! I will inveigle him. Prithee, good fellow, 

thy mistress is a great lady, I trow. 
Laco. Nay, my mistress is a likelier wench than she. 
Cal. Than who? 
Laco. Than my mistress. 

Cal. How can thy mistress be a likelier wench than thy mistress ? 
Laco. Why, because the mistress who serves me is a likelier wench than 

the mistress I serve. 
Cal. But the mistress thou servest, then — is she a great lady? 
Laco. There be those who think so. 
Cal. Aye, and there must be some who know. Thou and her maid there 

— do ye not know whether she is a great lady? 
Laco. I and her maid? Why, we know nothing in common. 
Cal. Well, dost thou know something out of the common, then? Tell 

me, which of them is thy mistress — the matron or the maid? 
Laco. As I'm a man, no maid is my mistress. 
Cal. To Styx with thy mistress, fellow! Come to the point. There be 

two ladies there, both veiled. Is it the stately one, in the fine robe, 

whom thou servest, or is it the smaller one who is the greater? 

48 



Act 5, Sc, 2.] PRAXITELES. 49 

Laco. How can the smaller one he the greater? Nay, Hout me not I It 
thou wilt hefuddle me with vain questions and trip me up with am- 
biguities I must fall. I am a plain man — speak to me plainly. 

Cal. Plainly, then, are these ladies what they seem, or is it a masquerade 
thev play? Doth the smaller one, and more plainly robed, serve the 
taller, and is the taller a great lady? Arc they what they seem? 

Laco. I'lainly, then, the taller one shineth coldly like an icicle on a gutter, 
but I think a stray moonbeam would melt her; and the smaller one 
doth act as sentry to my lady's virtue, but is oft absent from her post. 
Forsooth, so near as I can understand it, though they seem what they 
are, they are not what they seem. If thou wouldst know more of them 
go pour thy blandishments into their own ears — mayhap they may 
understand thee better than I. 

Prax. [flipping a coin into his hand.~\ Dost thou understand that? 

Laco. Aye! It hath a broad meaning and I will answer thee broadly, yet 
shalt thou believe the truth less than the falsehood. The taller one is a 
lady of position, and the shorter her servant. The taller one is consid- 
ered great, and, like all women, doth consider herself beautiful. The 
shorter one doth think herself greater and more beautiful than the mis- 
tress she serves. The great lady had set her heart on being the model 
for the great new statue of Greece, and the follower had set her heart 
on being a day first and so beating her mistress. But their robes, on 
which their beauty mainly depended, did both come late and at the 
same time from the seamstress, and since then they have haunted the 
public square in hope their overlate charms might reverse a too early 
decision. 

Cal. \_Apart, to Praxiteles.^ Nay ! 'Tis an idle tale. 'Tis they, them- 
selves. Let us accost them. 

Prax. [^To Marcia.'\ At last! Ah ! thou mayst veil as closely as thou wilt, 
thou dost not hide thy form. 

Marcia. 'Tis a great praise to be so admired of so great an artist. 

Prax. Thou dost acknowledge me, then? Wilt thou not offer me a finger 
in proof of thine own self? 

Marcia. A finger? Nay, I will offer nothing to one who wants so little 
of me. \_She turns away.'\ 

Cal. [I'd Flora.'] Ah, saucy one! So thou playest the shy and the demure. 
Wilt thou give me a finger now in pledge of the whole hand thou gavest 
me many times ? 

Flora. A finger? A hand? I gave thee neither. What am I that a Prince 
should ask my hand? 

Cal. So now thou agreest I am a Prince. Which art thou now, the mis- 
tress or the maid ? 

Flora. Couldst thou tell if thou sawest my face? 



50 PRAXITELES. [Act 5, Sc. 2. 

Prax. [To Marcia.'] Wilt thou not at last loosen that veil which hides 
those long-sought charms? Such form betokens youth and all youth's 
grace ; it tells of soul, and soul doth show in face. 

Marcia and Flora unveil, disclosing painted, old, and ugly faces. Callias and 
Praxiteles start in disgust and dismay, and rush together from the scene. 
Diogenes, who has been a spectator, holds up both hands to heaven in ap- 
peal at the weaknesses of the great. 

Curtain. 



5Ilct 5.— beetle 3. 

S>tuUio of prajitfltB. 

The room has been rearranged, the work-benches and tools and the table of Eugia have been 

removed, the busts and statues have been ranged in a semi-circle, and the new statue of 

Greece has a position of honor. Curtain rises on Praxiteles, who has seated himself 

on the base of his statue, in complete prostration and disgust. Grouped near 

him are Callias, Cleon, and Lucius. Diogenes stands at one side of the 

scene, bending over the Wounded Anteros, which Eugia has half 

concealed with a drapery. Menas and Althea guard the door. 

Cal. Thou hast had a great triumph, master. 

Cleon. Yes, greater than thou thinkest. In your presence — before the 
master of the State and the master of art — comment and criticism have 
been dumb. None dared to risk decisive speech till authority had set 
his seal. But Lucius and I, who crept around quietly through the skirts 
of the crowd, heard praise, and praise onlv. 

Pra.x. Then is my work a failure. If it be praised by all to-day, it will be 
forgotten by all to-morrow. 

Dio^. But I heard many a sarcasm. If blame will make your statue live, 
then will it live for aye. 

Prax. Blame! How dare they? What did they find to blame? 

Diog. They blamed because they found not what thev sought. Some 
sought a man and found a woman — some suspected a maid and dis- 
cerned a youth — and most hungered for a monster. Thou gavest 
neither youth, maid, nor monster, and the crowd is too cold to warm 
marble into poetic fire at one sitting. 

Prax. At one sitting? Why, all I have dreamed of Greece from her cradle 
to her grave is compressed in that stone. To-dav cannot understand it; 
nav, nor to-morrow, nor many to-morrows. Idiots ! to think they can 
fathom at a glance what it has taken the eyes of my soul a lifetime to 
decipher. 

Diog. Aye! But there is a deeper condemnation. Men mav look on 
greatness and not understand it, but if it be really great should not they 
recognize the greatness? I have heard that in the sands of Kgvpt there 
are statues hideous of dull red stone which none admire, none under- 
stand — which all approach with awe. On their thick lips and smoothed 

5> 



52 PRAXITELES. [Act 5, Sc 3. 

foreheads sits the majesty of a buried past. On countless faces the same 
weird smile taunts one with secrets old and silence kept. 

But at thy feast, O sculptor, I saw many who passed the banquet- 
board and picked up the crumbs from the floor. These nymphs and 
odalisques perplexed them strangely. Yet were there some sage 
critics. There was even one who discerned enough to know Triton by 
his horn. 

Cal. Nay, sage, thou railest wildly. It was not for these our sculptor 
carved, but for time. Is it any wonder that the popular throng, crowd- 
ed hastily among statues and busts, do not at once pick out art's choic- 
est marvels ? Who could single out Helen at a glance were she bared 
in the public bath ? And thou, O cynic, who would pick thee out from 
the beggars of the market-place as a great philosopher if it were not for 
thy tub ? Here and at the fountain's rim thy railings sound like the 
echoes of a street brawl. Writ down in gold, and pondered on when 
we are dead, they shall read like the wise proverbs of some mouthpiece 
of the gods. 

Crowded in here, with marble slaves and nymphs and wantons, Greece 
rises not, but falls down to their level. Yon face which smiles behind 
our Greece's elbow calls up so plain a girl I knew in flesh that I forget 
this new-born purity in the sense of a treasured guilt. 

Take this away from narrow walls — from lowly roof — from mean 
surroundings. Set it aloft on some black, beetling crag. The Parthe- 
non's gold behind — above, below, heaven's resplendent arch, the earth's 
broad plain. And then, let Greece stand ofi^ and reverently gaze, while, 
ages hence, nations unborn shall rally at its base, gathering the scattered 
culture of a world round culture's oldest throne. 

~Diog. But if the sculptor carve for time alone, where is his meed to-day ? 
Nations unborn fill up no wine-jars, nor scatter gold-pieces, nor add to 
the lip's praise the lip's warmth. 

Cal. Forsooth, thou art a wise sage, after all, and though age may have 
cooled thy blood it hath left thee wisdom to gauge the warmth of other 
men's veins. If my own wits work not at random, I surmise that it is 
not the public silence nor applause, nor too discriminating praise nor 
stupid censure which dismay our host. Methinks it is the lack of a 
certain feminine reward which doth outweigh the State's acceptance and 
the nation's praise. 

Prax. Aye, it may be that. The day hath almost gone, and she who in- 
spired the work hath not yet met our gaze. I felt sure this day she 
would appear before, above them all, in robes celestial and with smile so 
sweet all should acclaim her beauty. 

And thou, my Prince ! Thou shouldst seat Greece's model on 
Greece's throne, and wear her next thy heart. 

Eugia ! Why, where's Eugia? I bethink me now, that among all 



Act 5, Sc. 3.1 PRAXITELES. 53 

these senators and stately dames 1 have scarce once seen Eugia. Nay, 
I am so perplexed 1 doubt if I have seen her at all. I fear that, in ex- 
pecting one who came not, I have neglected one whose daily ministries 
have made me what I am. 

Ho! .Altheal Where's thy daughter? 

Alt. She waits in the ante-room, master. When the great and the rich 
come together in state, then should humble folk remember that they are 
humble. 

Prax. Go bid her enter. 

Eugia and Nyctelia enter, the latter keeping unseen in the background behind 
Althea, while Eugia approaches. 

I have missed thee to-day, Eugia, yet did not know I missed thee. 
Something was wrong all day, I knew not what. And all day long I 
waited one who came not. Thou! Didst thou scan the throng? Thy 
keener sense might have discerned upon the lintel's edge her to whom 
I was blind. 

Eug. If thou couldst not feel her near, how could I tell her presence? 

Cal. \Dragging Nyctelia to the front. ~\ Well, here's her hand-maid! I'd 
know that tace among a thousand. A prettv masquerade! A peasant! 
A gatherer of grapes ! A great lady, a Princess, who has been strug- 
gling as hard to roughen her hands and tan her skin as most dames do 
to smooth and whiten theirs. And in trying to disguise the Princess 
she has onlv added to roval grace such a maidenly archness as would 
make anv woman royal. 

But here! We have been tricked once, sculptor ; let us again de- 
mand the pledge. Hast thou a finger? 

Nyct. Why? Hast thou a ring to put on it? 

Cal. Nay, girl! A marble finger! 

Nyct. There be some who would not crave marble when flesh were prof- 
fered. 

Cal. But in this case marble is the test of flesh. If thou dost produce a 
marble finger then will I swear thou art the sweetest, merriest wench 
mine eyes have ever set on. 

Nyct. Then thou canst not tell me for a merry wench by my own speech 
nor face, but must need a marble finger to swear by! Well, if that be 
my proot of value, behold! 

Nyctelia produces a marble finger. Callias seizes it, throws it on the floor, 
and showers tokens of transport and delight on Nyctelia. 

Prax. Why, here's some joke! This is a child's first finger, and a whole 
one. It should be the fragment of a woman's fourth. 



54 PRAXITELES. [Act 5, Sc. 3. 

Cal. [Drawing away from Nyctelia.'\ What! Thou saucy fraud! Dost 
thou cheat me with the semblance of a face? 

Nyct. [Pretending to sulk.'\ Canst thou not tell whether I am merry and to 
thy taste unless thou knowest if my face be mine own or some other's? 
A woman's, and the fourth! Well, how will this do? 

Prax. [Fitting the fragment to a mutilated hand.'\ It fits to the finest frac- 
ture. 

Cal. Now art thou the very queen of sports. I would rather be tantalized 
by thee than surfeited by beauty's queen. 

Prax. But thy mistress ! Thy mistress ! 

Nyct. Didst thou not see her here to-day ? Why, I saw her ! I could tell 
that sweep of the arm — that droop of the shoulder — that stately car- 
riage — that graceful poise — were she uniformed like the vestals and 
had only her form to distinguish her. Why, she stood there, — just 
where Eugia stands now, — and once she raised her arm, so [placing 
Eugia 5 in position'] , and leaned her head this way, and raised her foot 
thus, and I could have sworn it was Greece's self, she looked so like 
yon statue — just as Eugia looks now! 

Prax. By heaven, it is the same ! Give me thy living hand and I will ask 
no more. 

Eug. Nay ! I will certify myself, so no shadow of a doubt shall stay. [She 
produces the remaining fragment of a finger^ 

Prax. Eugia ! Eugia ! And must I part with thee, just as I know thy 
worth? But thou shalt go where thou dost belong. And I, ungrateful. 
Who better than my Prince deserves my best gift, and who better than 
my hand-maid deserves my Prince? 

Cal. [Coming with princely gallantry to Eugia.'] Fair lady, better far a living 
Greece than the fairest she that ever gleamed in stone. The Kings and 
the people; the people and the Kings — these have made Greece what 
she is. Perchance if we mingle the blood of King and people our heir 
may make Greece what she ought to be. People, King, State, and 
sculptor have sworn a solemn pact. She who was found meet for the 
State's model was meet for the Prince's bride. I ratify that pact. 

The men of Greece are mothered by its women. No fairer maid did 
ever spring from out the people's loins. So fair a maid should be a 
fairer mother, and she who hath given the State its stone exemplar 
should give it also a living King. So fair thou art, thou mightest be 
vile and cruel. But I have seen thee long — meek and self-effacing, ever 
watchful and ready, ever tender, thoughtful, and true. Those only who 
serve well reach the high grace of rule. Come, then, my bride. Be as 
true to me as thou hast been to thyself, and thy master and all Greece 
shall be loyal and true to thee. 

Eug. [Drawing gently away from the Prince.] But, masters, there was an- 
other part to the pact. She who became the State's model was to re- 



I 



Act 5, Sc 3.] PRAXITELES. 55 

ceive the sculptor's greatest work. It" 1 have served truly, am not I 

worth the whole meed? 
Prax. Worth it? Aye, and far more! My greatest work? 
Diog. Aye, sculptor! Thv greatest work! Athens hath long had its own 

opinion, — that is, its hundred or more opinions, — but all desire the 

master's seal on his greatest work — desire it mostly so they can scratch 

it off. Is it the Antinous? or the Dancing Girl? or the Aphrodite? 

Methinks if I were to choose I should pause long over the Satyr; 

but I ween I would stop at last by this Wounded Anteros. It hath a 

touch of failure about it, and that touch reveals the sculptor's highest 

bound. 
Ckon. But why not the hermaphrodite? 
Diog. But how can the sculptor give to the model what the State hath paid 

for in gold? Or perhaps, like other women, it is the gold she hath 

wrought for all along. Give the State its statue, the sculptor his fame, 

and her the gold. 
Eug. \_Indignantly.'] Nay ! I claim the pact. I was promised the sculptor's 

greatest work. 
Diog. Do thou decide, then. See, 1 will place this laurel crown upon their 

heads, and where thou biddest it stay that shall be thine. 

He places it on the beads of the various statues, till finally it rests on the 

hermaphrodite. 

She claims this fairest, not because it mirrors forth the sculptor's best, 
but her own fairness. 
Prax. Mv best! Ah, would it were! It is my longest, latest labor — mv 
highest striving — the sweetest effort of my art and love. My greatest 
work? Nay! I shall give thee better far than that. This is my great- 
est work — to show me true to art and mine own true self! 

He seizes a hammer, and with one blow strikes off the statue s head. The 
Prince seizes him, Eugia and Nyctelia rush into each others' arms in 
affright, and Diogenes and others gather round Praxiteles and the Prince. 

Prax. Now, when I am most sane, ye sane folk think me mad. See ye! 
It was, indeed, a great work. Of the beauties found there by the throng 
few did exist save in their own distorted minds. Of the blemishes they 
condemned as manv perhaps as the beauties, and these come mostly 
from their jealous hearts. But there was one thing there I knew, and 
I alone. A trick, a fraud, a subterfuge of art! Had it been an open 
blemish I could have stood men's blame. But to live, and have that 
live after me with its sleek, white hypocrisy — that were, indeed, too 
much. 



56 PRAXITELES. [Act 5, Sc. 3. 

Cal. I am the Prince here — I decide this fate. Greater than art and work 
is he who makes the one and serves the other. Greatest of all is he 
who, weighing each, weighs his own value in the scale 'gainst both. 
Eugia, thou hast thy prize! The pact affirmed — the State approved — 
the Prince decides. 

The man's his greatest work ! 

Callias places Eugia in the sculptor s arms, Diogenes places the laurel crown 
upon his head, and the Prince clasps Nyctelia in his arms. 

Curtain. 



5Ftm^» 



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